Justin Fields has been improving each week during his four games under center for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Although the team lost their first game of the season in a close game on Sunday in Indianapolis, Fields showed why Omar Khan and Mike Tomlin wanted to get the talented player out of Chicago.
In his best game so far for the Black and Yellow, Fields threw for 312 yards and 1 TD and also rushed for 55 yards and 2 TDs.
It was the type of performance that should solidify his place as the team’s starting QB despite coach Tomlin refusing to name him such, which is part of the mind games Tomlin plays with players to keep them motivated and hungry.
And it usually works, too.
Fields is not only proving he can play, but he’s also giving new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith more reason to open up the playbook and let his arm loose.
Some doubters made fun of his week one passing chart, which solely focused on outside throws. But that was by design instead of Fields fearing to throw down the middle.
Against the Colts, Fields had more options and he took advantage of them, throwing deep passes to George Pickens and hitting players like tight end Pat Freiermuth, who scored his first TD of the season on a red zone bullet from Fields, in the middle of the field.
But after reading some of the ignorant comments about Fields after the game, one would think that Mitch Trubisky returned to Pittsburgh.
These fans are just haters of Fields, and bitter Chicago Bears fans who blame the still young QB for the last few years of futility.
Instead of blaming Fields, they should look at how Caleb Williams is performing under head coach Matt Eberflus, who was also Fields’ coach for two of the three years he was in the Windy City.
Both quarterbacks suffered/are suffering under Eberflus, and many have criticized him and management for keeping him as head coach.
But now that Fields has joined Tomlin and Smith in Pittsburgh, he’s becoming more comfortable in the new offense. And despite the costly fumble and bothched snap on Sunday, Fields carried a sleepy Pittsburgh defense in the second half and almost led the Steelers to a come-from-behind victory.
Fields is showing that he can be the star he was at Ohio State, the one that lit up Trevor Lawrence and Clemson in the 2021 College Football Playoffs for 385 yards, 6 TDs and 1 INT.
Most importantly, he’s silencing the doubters whose continued disrespect is looking more and more foolish every week.
But Fields is used to disrespect.
In the 2021 NFL Draft, he was the fourth QB selected behind Lawrence, who went first overall to the Jaguars, Zach Wilson (Jets, 2nd) and Trey Lance (49ers, 3rd). Fields was taken 11th overall by the Bears, four picks ahead of Mac Jones who went to the Patriots at 15.
Looking at it now, Pittsburgh got a steal. Not only did they trade a conditional sixth rounder for him (if he keeps playing this way, it will convert to a fourth rounder), but he’s having more success than the aforemention quarterbacks from his draft class, including Lawrence who looks horrible after signing a massive five-year, $275 million contract extension this past June.
Pittsburgh hasn’t picked up Fields’ fifth-year option as of yet, and is only paying him $1.6 million this season. For what they’re getting, this has to be one of the biggest bargains fans have seen in recent years, and maybe ever.
Justin Fields was literally running for his life with the Bears in 2022 and then, after building a repore with DJ Moore and Cole Kmet, suffered an injury to his throwing hand. While injured, he had to deal with “experts” like Cris Collinsworth take shots at him by saying that he needed to take notes from backup Tyson Bagent.
“These couple of games, however long Bagent stays the starting quarterback, they’re gonna have Justin Fields study this guy,” said Collinsworth during Chicago’s game against the Chargers in October.
Yet Fields never said anything negative about the city, teammates, the coaching staff or the media.
Instead, he tried to do whatever he could in 2023 to show that he could be the team’s starter despite the Bears salivating over Caleb Williams.
Now Williams is suffering the same fate that Fields did during his time with Eberflus while Fields is 3-1 with a Steelers team that should be good enough to make some noise in the playoffs.
While Justin Fields is still getting flack for a bad play from his detractos, he deserves more praise for the numerous more good plays. Regardless, he seems to be handling it well.
He just needed to get out off Chicago and get with a real coach, which he now has in Mike Tomlin.
And even though Tomlin is using Jedi mindtricks on Fields to keep him hungry, real fans know that he’s now QB1 in Steeltown.
